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As the Tour de France has proved time and time again, there are no pre-written scripts to any stage of La Grande Boucle. And with a succession of difficult mountain legs to come, Thursday's 12th stage to Vittel was about as good a chance as any to break the sprinters' mould.

The opportunists knew it, and it took 82 hard-fought kilometres before a septet of hopefuls had clearance to leave the peloton. Sörensen of Team Saxo Bank, the best-placed of the seven on the classement general, knew his 10:36 gap to maillot jaune Rinaldo Nocentini would result in the Italian's AG2R La Mondiale squad keeping the break checked at no more than five minutes.

The Dane, rarely given a chance to ride for himself at the Tour de France, was feeling pretty good. Good enough to win. But there were two in the move that concerned him most: "The way I saw it, the two strongest guys in the break were [Egoi] Martinez and [Franco] Pellizotti, so I was worried," he said.

With around 50 kilometres left and as AG2R La Mondiale peeled off the front, its marking duties done for the day, Sörensen expected Columbia-HTC, the team of maillot vert Mark Cavendish, to begin the chase. However, its past two days of toil, coupled with the blazing afternoon sun in the region of Vosges, had taken its toll, and the strangest thing happened: no one chased.

"We expected Columbia to pull for their main guy but that never happened, so we knew it would be between us," said Sörensen. "From 25 k's to go, I had it in my mind to give it all I could. The worst thing for me would be to come to the finish line without having used all my strength and not win the stage."

Odds in his favour

Working to Sörensen's advantage was that the men he feared most, Martinez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Pellizotti (Liquigas), now first and second on the mountains classification, were partially cooked after fighting for the three mountain primes between kilometres 150 and 170.5. He had to go soon, before they recovered.

Twenty-three kilometres before the finish, Sörensen attacked.

Sylvain Calzati of Agritubel, the only rider in the escape to have won a Tour stage, chased him down and made the junction. Fifteen kilometres from the line, they had a second for every kilometre remaining to the guys they'd just ditched, who had in no way given up and were pissed they'd been dropped.

A consistently strong all-rounder, Sörensen, with five-and-a-half kilometres left to race, decided to attack again. For a man who still had the strength - which he had judged to perfection - it was a faultless move by the Great Dane. "After I went alone, I began to get nervous whether I could succeed or not," he said.

Sörensen needn't have worried, because after 211.5 kilometres, he finished 48 seconds clear of Laurent Lefevre (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) and Pellizotti. Cavendish, winning the field sprint for eighth place, arrived a massive six minutes behind.

"It's a thing I'm going to carry with me forever. I was in good shape and mentally, I was on top of things today. The tactical part, I did myself," said Sörensen, asked how much he relied on the race radio to make his own decisions.

How long can Nocentini hold on?

With Sörensen in no way threatening the leader board, Thursday's top 10 once again remained at status quo, Nocentini continuing to hold a slender six and eight-second advantage over his closest rivals, Astana's Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong.

"It wasn't an easy day today," Nocentini said, relieved his dream run isn't over. "The first two hours had an incredible speed. Sörensen was the best-placed of the break at 10 minutes, so that was okay for us.

"The team worked a lot and kept the gap around four minutes. We hoped the sprinters' teams would take over, but with the heat, they didn't want to help out, so they stopped chasing. I certainly hope it will be easier tomorrow, and that I can keep the maillot jaune," he said, even though Friday's Stage 13 profile could be the end of his reign at the top.

Fourth-place on GC, Levi Leipheimer, also of Astana, ended up overcooking a corner with Silence-Lotto's Cadel Evans 2.5 kilometres from the finish, but within the stipulated three-kilometre-to-go margin that negates any time lost, both kept their places and times on the overall standings.

A trip to Waterworld

Thursday's 12th leg began in Tonnerre, within the previous day's region of Yonne and by car, roughly two hours from Paris and one-and-a-half hours from Dijon.

Another roller coaster parcours presented itself for the remaining 170 riders that included six categorised climbs: five Cat. 4s and one Cat. 3, the latter positioned 41 kilometres from the finish. Beginning at a très vit 47.9 km/h average, any attacks - one of which included Evans, Leipheimer, Andy Schleck (Team Saxo Bank) and Mikel Astarloza (Euskatel-Euskadi) - were stymied till some 80 kilometres into the stage, when a group of seven established themselves after the third Cat. 4 climb of Essoyes. Included in the move were: Lefevre (Bbox Bouygues Telecom), Calzati (Agritubel), Pellizotti (Liquigas), Markus Fothen (Team Milram), Martinez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Rémi Pauriol (Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne) and Sörensen (Team Saxo Bank) - the best-placed on GC at the start of the day.

Working well together, the septet enjoyed a handy 4:17 advantage 100 kilometres out from Vittel, well-known for its Belle Epoque façades and majestic Art Deco luxury hotels, as well as a beautifully preserved natural environment. However, they weren't allowed to get much more than that, Nocentini's AG2R La Mondiale squad intent on keeping its newfound star in yellow for at least one more day.

Around the same time the lead group was 60 clicks out from the finish, Astana's Lance Armstrong stopped for a mechanical but was quickly paced back to the peloton by four of his teammates - one of which wasn't Contador. Shortly after, with Pellizotti crossing the Grand Bois climb (km. 150) first - by the day's end, the Italian would win four of six mountain primes - he moved into virtual second on the mountains classification behind Martinez, ending the day 16 points adrift of the spotted tunic and no doubt eyeing the larger mountains to come.

Twenty-three kilometres out and sensing recapture, first Sörensen and then Calzati decided to break free, before the Team Saxo Bank rider chose to go solo 5.3 kilometres from home, the peloton at that point almost five minutes behind and conceding defeat. Pedalling a strong, fluid tempo like the rouleur he is, the Danish rider stood a good chance as he gapped his previous companions by half a minute three kilometres from the finish. And as the narrow roads switched from left to right and vice-versa in the last kilometres it proved ideal for the Dane, eventually gapping the remnants of the break by 48 seconds and the peloton by 5:58.

It wasn't a half-hearted sprint for eighth place by Cavendish and Hushovd, the Manxster continuing to get the better of his Norwegian adversary and thereby increase his points lead by a margin of 10.

Full Specifications

Anyone want to be in Ciolek's sprinting shoes?

He's tried, but Milram's Gerard Ciolek just can't seem to get anywhere close to Mark Cavendish, who yesterday in Saint-Fargeau, went quatre á quatre, picking up his fourth stage win with apparent ease.

Granted, at 22 years old, Ciolek's two years younger than his arch-rival Cavendish, himself hardly an old fart at 24. And being Germany's only ProTour team after numerous doping scandals left the country's cycling fraternity lifeless, the weight of expectation must be enormous after Erik Zabel's prolific success the past decade-and-a-half.

So far in this 96th Tour de France, Ciolek, a former Under-23 world road champion, hasn't even made the top three, his fifth place in Saint-Fargeau the best he's done so far. What gives?

"You have a strong Columbia team with a really strong Mark Cavendish. That's what makes it really difficult for us," he told Cyclingnews." First of all, we have to try and beat his team, then we have to try and beat him, and they're two really difficult things,"

"If it works like [Stage 11], I think we have a good chance to beat Columbia in the finale. Maybe we don't have as much experience as them, but I think if you saw the first [road] stage or the [11th] stage yesterday, then you can see we have a team able to organise a finale like that."

Confidence is everything for a sprinter, yet Ciolek's words exude little of that. It's a sprinter's worst fear, coming to the world's biggest bike race without a recent win - or any season win, for that matter - though unfortunately, that's the way it's been for the young German.

"I had a difficult spring," Ciolek said. "I didn't start so well in the season; I had some problems, got sick, and it was hard for me to come back. But my pre-races for the Tour were really good, like the Bayern Rundfahrt or the Tour de Suisse. I'm trying to do a good Tour."

Does he expect to improve from here on in, or did the Pyrenees sap some of his precious leg strength?

"I think the rest day was really good for me. But yeah, you never feel fresh after 10 or 11 days of racing. At this point of the Tour, I think my condition's okay," said Ciolek.